Sometimes it takes a sports event to remind us of milestones in American history, and two momentous moments were invoked at the U.S. Open this week when former First Lady Michelle Obama appeared on Monday evening to pay tribute to Billie Jean King and mark the anniversary of the U.S. Open becoming the first Grand Slam tennis tournament to pay women equal prize money.
King, who won the U.S. Open in 1972, earned $10,000 for the victory—$15,000 less than the men’s champion. When she threatened not to play the next year, it sparked the movement for equal pay in the World Tennis Association (WTA). This happened nine years after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, protecting workers from pay discrimination on the basis of race.
“Billie Jean teaches us that when things lie in the balance, we all have a choice to make. We can either wait around and accept what we’re given. We can sit silently and hope someone else fights our battles. Or we can make our own stand,” Obama said. “We can use whatever platforms we have to speak out and fight to protect the progress we’ve made, and level the playing field for all of our daughters and their daughters.”
But Obama said of the champion’s paycheck: “This is about how women are seen and valued in the world.”
In her speech, King referred to the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, and it wasn’t difficult to see how the 60th anniversary of one event converged with the other.
Race and gender disparities have not dramatically improved over this long stretch of history, and much more pressure is necessary to bring about the dream for equity that both Kings, Martin and Billie Jean, championed.
Let’s not allow the “love” on the tennis court—the zero—to be the same as we struggle to attain equality in the workplace.